Chapter 31 Is it just subtle grief?
Tristan’s POV
My mind almost turned against me.
Each step away from her door felt like dragging myself out of a frozen tomb—the kind that steals warmth, memory, and will. Her refusal itself wasn’t what hurt; shame was a burden I could bear. What gutted me was the echo of her presence still clinging to me, reminding me of the bond she refused to honor.
It was as though she stood on the other end of our thread, blade in hand, testing how much she could weaken it before it broke completely.
“Celine.” My lips muttered her name as I touched the knob to this large room, a room I hardly found myself in anymore.
Should I go back to her?
No. She had asked me to leave—she had asked an Alpha to leave. I had to accept that shame, no matter how heavy it was.
I opened the door to the room.
It had been ages since I’d come here. I stood for too long, taking in the view as if it were new. My gaze fell on the bed, and for a moment, I imagined her lying there, waiting for me to grab her. If she was, and still didn’t want me near her, she could roll to the other side of the bed—and I’d still be far away.
The bed was that wide.
But this room always reminded me of my parents. They had died here, their blood spilled on this same floor.
“Celine,” I called softly again, but I didn’t send the mindlink for her to hear me.
Maybe I shouldn’t have allowed her to refuse me. I should have demanded respect. But how—by using force? Hell no.
And if not by force, then how else?
“I need drinks,” I sent through the mindlink to a maid closest to my room.
Soon, the door opened. The maid came in with a tray holding two bottles of beer and a glass beside them. She placed it on the table near the bed, bowed slightly, and waited for me to dismiss her. But I didn’t. Maybe I needed someone’s presence in the room, even if it was anyone at all—so I wouldn’t drown in my thoughts.
These days, my thoughts controlled me more than I controlled them.
“You know how she got bleeding?” I asked, my gaze still fixed on the door, not her.
She didn’t answer.
“You didn’t hear me?”
“Sir?”
Her head remained bowed as I took slow sips from the glass—maybe half an hour already—and she hadn’t dared to lift it. Maids here were trained to express respect this way. She wouldn’t complain about the posture.
And to think of that—Celine shouldn’t have been made to act the way she did, arrogant and defiant as ever. I’d given her too many liberties. But what were those liberties really?
Letting her stay in a good room instead of a dungeon cell? Allowing her to speak freely like she held power?
What if she did—and I was that power?
The glass in my hand broke into pieces, shattering across the bed.
“Alpha…” The maid rushed forward, trying to pick up the shards.
“Don’t,” I stopped her.
She froze in place. She didn’t argue. I could have told her to do anything, and she would have obeyed. It would have been an honor to her. If only Celine could be like that.
“Fine,” I said finally. “Pick the broken glass. Drop it on the floor.”
She nodded and did so without hesitation.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t crossed any lines—but with this maid, I had no boundaries.
Celine, on the other hand, had placed me in chains of restraint, making me doubt my own authority as Alpha. Why did I even care?
I could order the gammas to bring her to me right now, force her to submit. But I wouldn’t.
I’d become too weak… too considerate.
Yet I remembered the look in her eyes—the fear. Like she saw something in me that even I didn’t. And beneath that fear, there was concern she refused to acknowledge.
Because she wasn’t like that before. I’d known that in the short time she’d been here.
My scent had drawn her to me. That meant it appealed to her. The primal bond between us went beyond attraction—it was instinctual, undeniable, even for her, a human with only a faint trace of wolf instinct.
She had allowed my touch to lead us into the consummation of the bond. But she had never called me her mate. Not once.
Why the hesitation?
My past must have crept between us again.
“Maid,” I called.
She was still standing, her legs likely aching from it.
“Alpha,” she replied.
“You should sit.” I gestured to the space beside me.
She hesitated, uncertain she’d heard right. I tapped the spot again.
“But sir… I’m not supposed to—”
“Sit.”
She obeyed, though her thighs were tightly closed. What did she think—that I’d look there?
“Have you met Celine?”
“Yes, I have,” she said quietly.
“What did you notice?”
“Notice?” she echoed, fidgeting.
She was feigning ignorance. She knew exactly what I meant. The maids gossiped.
“Yes. What have you noticed about her?”
Her fingers pressed against her thighs. “I don’t understand, sir.”
“She’s heard anything about my past?” I asked.
Her silence said enough. My past—she must have heard something. She didn’t want to admit it. I clenched my fist.
“What’s your name?”
“Mi… Mira.”
“Stand up.”
She rose between me and the shattered glass.
“Strip.”
Her face twitched.
“I said strip.”
“But… sir…”
“Do it.”
Her hands trembled as she reached for her pinafore, unbuttoning it slowly.
“Please…” she whispered over and over as I watched.
It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t mine either—it was Celine’s. Her refusal, her defiance, had driven me to this madness.
“Just do it,” I said again.
She nodded, sliding the fabric off until her breasts were bare before me. They were almost like Celine’s… and Zara’s. The resemblance made me falter.
“Please…” she whispered again, stepping back.
“It isn’t my fault she sees me as unclean,” I whispered, my fingers ghosting over the maid’s trembling shoulders.
Her eyes shut tight, her lips quivering in silent surrender.
“It wasn’t my fault my parents died,” I muttered, the words breaking apart on my tongue, “or that I’m hunting the one who destroyed them.”
Her stillness mirrored my own collapse—both of us prisoners to something neither could name.
And just as the room began to tilt under the weight of my guilt, the doors crashed open.
“Tristan.”
Zara’s voice tore through the fog. Within moments, she’d sent the maid away. Her hands found me, steady and warm where everything inside me was splintering. Why hadn’t she been the one the Moon gave me? She always arrived when I was at my lowest, like a shadow that refused to let me vanish completely.
But the darkness was faster this time. It clawed through my chest, dragging blood and memory in its wake.
“I’m drowning,” I breathed, the words a confession, not a plea.
The last thing I heard was her voice breaking through the void—
“Tristan…”
Then everything dissolved into black.